Letter: Benefits to 'illegal aliens' nonexistent

In his May 8 opinion column, Professor Bollum calls for examining "the worthiness of many social welfare programs like the overly generous benefits to illegal aliens." Not only are such benefits not "overly generous," they are nonexistent. Those in this country without authorization, documentation are, in fact, not eligible for public assistance, food stamps or Medicaid (with the exception of prenatal and childbirth medical care). Any children of workers born in the U.S. are, of course, U.S. citizens and are eligible for anything that all other citizens have. This canard has been fact-checked repeatedly by PolitiFact and others. If a university professor is ignorant of the basic facts of life for the 11 or 12 immigrants living in the shadows, how many other people must be misinformed as well? The undocumented are very hard workers for good reason. They have to be. There is no handout.

Forty percent of our dairy industry relies on undocumented workers. Without them our economy would crumble. Americans simply will not clean out cow stalls. Ask any farmer. Also, in the English language, the adjectives "legal" and "illegal" do not, cannot apply to people, human beings.

There is no such entity as a legal person. Also, in many states, such as Wisconsin, there are no "community colleges." I think, as far as Wisconsin is concerned, Professor Bollum means vocational technical colleges.